Commentary: African American Scientists, Explorers and Inventors
By dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
James Pierson Beckwourth (born April 26, 1798 or 1800 – and died October 29, 1866 or 1867 the dates are unclear), was an American mountain man, fur trader, and explorer. James Beckwourth made major contributions to America’s early Western explorations. He documented and recorded his journey from Florida’s Everglades to the Pacific Ocean as well as from Canada’s south to Mexico’s north. He was the only African American who left such detailed record of these areas at this time.
Beckwourth, who was born into slavery in Virginia, was nicknamed "Bloody Arm" because of his skill as a fighter. He was freed by his white father (and master) and then apprenticed to a blacksmith so that he could learn a trade. Beckwourth worked on his autobiography between 1854 and 1855; the book was published in 1856 and entitled “The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians”.
James father Jennings Beckwith moved to Missouri from Virginia around 1809, when James was young, taking his mother and all their children with him. Although Beckwith acknowledged and raised his mixed-race children as his own, he legally held them as master. His father arranged to apprentice him to a blacksmith so that he could learn a good trade. At age 19, he was fired by the artisan after getting into an argument with him. His father later freed Beckworth by deed of emancipation in court between 1824 and 1826.
As a young man, Beckwourth moved to the American West, first making connections with fur traders in St. Louis. As a fur trapper, he lived with the Crow Nation for years. During the California Gold Rush years he is credited with the discovery of Beckwourth Pass through the Sierra Nevada, between present-day Reno, Nevada, and Portola, California. He improved the Beckwourth Trail, which thousands of settlers followed to central California.
In 1824 as a young man, Beckwourth joined General William Ashley's Rocky Mountain Fur Company. He worked as a wrangler during Ashley's expedition to explore the Rocky Mountains. In the following years, Beckwourth became known as a prominent trapper and mountain man. In July 1825, colleague Caleb Greenwood told the campfire story of Beckwourth's being the child of a Crow chief. He claimed Beckwourth had been stolen as a baby by raiding Cheyenne and sold to whites. This lore was widely believed, as Beckwourth had adopted Native American dress and was taken by some people as an Indian.
Later that year, Beckwourth claimed to have been captured by Crow while trapping in the border county between the territories of Crow, Cheyenne, and Blackfoot. According to his account, he was mistaken for the lost son of a Crow chief, so they admitted him to the nation. Independent accounts suggest his stay with the Crow was planned by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to advance its trade with the tribe. Beckwourth married the daughter of a chief. (Marriages between Native Americans and fur trappers and traders were common for the valuable alliances they provided both parties.)
For the next eight to nine years, Beckwourth lived with a Crow band. He rose in their society from warrior to chief (a respected man) and leader of the "Dog Clan". According to his book, he eventually ascended to the highest-ranking war chieftaincy of the Crow Nation. He still trapped but did not sell his or Crow furs to his former partners of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Instead, he sold to John Jacob Astor's competing American Fur Company. Beckwourth participated in raids by the Crow on neighboring nations and the occasional white party. Sometimes such raids escalated to warfare, most often against bands of their traditional Blackfoot enemy.
In 1837, when the American Fur Company did not renew his contract, Beckwourth returned to St. Louis. He volunteered with the United States Army to fight in the Second Seminole War in Florida. Although in his book, he claims to have been a soldier and courier, according to historical records, he was a civilian wagon master in the baggage division.
From 1838 to 1840, Beckwourth was an Indian trader to the Cheyenne, on the Arkansas River, working out of Fort Vasquez, Colorado, near Platteville. In 1840, he moved to Bent, St. Vrain & Company. Later that same year, Beckwourth became an independent trader. Together with other partners, he built a trading post in Colorado. It was the center of development of the community of Pueblo, Colorado.
In 1844, Beckwourth traded on the Old Spanish Trail between the Arkansas River and California, then controlled by Mexico. When the Mexican–American War began in 1846, Beckwourth returned to the United States. He brought along nearly 1,800 stolen Mexican horses as spoils of war.
Beckwourth narrated his life story to Thomas D. Bonner, an itinerant justice of the peace. The book was published in New York City and London in 1856 as The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth: Mountaineer, Scout and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians. A translation was published in France in 1860. Early historians of the Old West originally considered the book little more than campfire lore. It has since been reassessed as a valuable source of social history, especially for life among the Crow, although not all its details are reliable or accurate. The civil rights movement of the 1960s celebrated Beckwourth as an early African-American pioneer. He has since been featured as a role model in children's literature and textbooks.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The dim lighting and vacant offices were the first clues.
Other changes struck Nina Washington, a senior at the University of Texas, when she returned to her favorite study spot from winter break. The words “Multicultural Center” had been taken off the wall, erasing an effort begun in the late 1980s to serve historically marginalized communities on campus. The center’s staff members were gone, its student groups dissolved.
“Politics, behaviors and emotions are returning to the old ways,” said Washington, who as a Black woman found a sense of community at the center.
The void in the heart of the nearly 52,000-student campus is one of many changes rippling across college campuses in Texas, where one of the nation’s most sweeping bans on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives took effect Jan. 1.
At least five other states have passed their own bans and Republican lawmakers in at least 19 states are pursuing various restrictions on diversity initiatives, an issue they hope will mobilize their voters this election year.
With over 600,000 students enrolled at more than 30 public universities across the state, the rollout in Texas offers a large-scale glimpse of what lies ahead for public higher education without the initiatives designed to make minorities feel less isolated and white students more prepared for careers that require working effectively with people of different backgrounds.
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A Texas judge on Thursday said the Barbers Hill Independent School District can punish a Black student who wears his hair in long locs without violating Texas’ new CROWN Act, which is meant to prevent hairstyle discrimination in schools and workplaces.
The decision came after a monthslong dispute between the district and Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School who has been sent to in-school suspension since August for wearing his hair in long locs. Legislators last year passed a law called the Texas CROWN Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of hair texture or protective styles associated with race. Protective styles include locs, braids and twists.
But the Barbers Hill school district successfully argued it can still enforce its policy that prohibits males from wearing hair that extends beyond eyebrows, earlobes or collars even if it’s gathered on top of the student’s head.
Judge Chap B. Cain III issued the ruling after a short trial in which lawyers for opposing sides argued over the legislative intent behind the CROWN Act. Lawyers for Barbers Hill said lawmakers would have included explicit language about hair length had they intended the law to cover it. Allie Booker, representing Darryl George and his mother Darresha George, said protective styles are only possible with long hair.
“You need significant length to perform the style,” Booker said. “You can’t make braids with a crew cut. You can’t lock anything that isn’t long.”
George exited the courtroom in tears, walking alongside his mother and several lawmakers who co-authored the CROWN Act.
“As I was walking down with Ms. George and Darryl, you could sense the anger, you could sense the confusion,” said Candice Matthews, the statewide chair of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats. “Darryl told me, with tears in his eyes: ‘All this because of my hair?’”
Darryl George
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A first look at Regina King’s turn as Shirley Chisholm is finally here. Netflix just dropped the trailer for “Shirley,” the upcoming biopic based on the life of the first Black congresswoman.
“I have something to tell you,” Chisholm proudly declares to her congressional intern Robert Gottlieb (Lucas Hedges) at the trailer’s start. “I am running for president.” The trailer whisks us back to 1972, during Chisholm’s trailblazing presidential campaign. “I am paving the road for a lot of other people looking like me to get elected,” she says in the clip.
Written and directed by John Ridley, the film boasts a star-studded supporting cast around King. In addition to Hedges, Lance Reddick, Christina Jackson, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Terrence Howard all fill out the ensemble of the film, which by the looks of the trailer, does not shy away from the various challenges Chisholm faced as the first on her political journey.
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Attorneys suing a Georgia county over zoning changes that they say threaten one of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities of Black slave descendants asked a judge Tuesday to let them correct technical problems with their civil complaint to avoid having it dismissed.
A lawyer for coastal McIntosh County argued the judge must throw out the lawsuit because it clashes with a 2020 amendment to Georgia’s state constitution dealing with legal immunity granted to state and local governments.
Residents of the tiny Hogg Hummock community sued in October after county commissioners voted to weaken zoning restrictions that for decades helped protect the enclave of modest homes along dirt roads on largely unspoiled Sapelo Island.
The zoning changes doubled the size of houses allowed in Hogg Hummock. Black residents say larger homes in the community will lead to property tax increases that they won’t be able to afford. Their lawsuit asks a judge to declare the new law discriminates “on the basis of race, and that it is therefore unconstitutional, null, and void.”
The legal arguments Superior Court Judge Jay Stewart heard Tuesday didn’t touch on the merits of the case. Instead, they dealt purely with technical flaws in the lawsuit filed by attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center and whether those problems warrant a complete dismissal.
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A judge in Haiti has charged the widow of murdered President Jovenel Moïse in connection with the assassination of the former leader on 7 July 2021. Martine Moïse, who was injured in the attack in which her husband was killed, is one of dozens of people charged following a two-year investigation.
According to a legal document leaked by a Haitian news site, she is accused of "complicity and criminal association". Neither she nor her lawyer have so far commented on the specific charges.
Ms Moïse has, however, used social media in recent days to denounce "unjust arrests" and what she said was a "never-ending persecution". It is not known where she currently lives.
Haitian media have lamented the fact that while the lengthy legal document charges 51 people, it fails to identify who ordered and financed President Moïse's assassination.
The 53-year-old was shot dead on 7 July 2021 at his private residence on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince by a group of mainly Colombian mercenaries.
Martine Moïse
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The deployment of an armed security mission to a crisis-stricken Haiti will be discussed this week on the sidelines of a gathering of foreign ministers from the world’s 20 richest nations in Rio de Janeiro.
The two-day gathering opened on Wednesday in Brazil, where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a two-hour meeting with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the capital of Brasilia, asked for help with Haiti. Brazil led the last United Nations peacekeeping mission to Haiti, and Haitians and others have been watching to see if the South American nation will once more volunteer to help.
Lula has said the problems in Haiti stretch beyond security, and so far he and other South American leaders have been reluctant to volunteer police or military personnel for a non-U.N. multinational security support mission for Haiti to be led by Kenya. Nevertheless, Brazil is joining the U.N. and the United States in hosting a high-level discussion on Thursday on the margins of the G20 ministerial meeting. It is being called “Rising to the Challenge on Haiti,” and the goal is to galvanize support for both the Multinational Security Support mission and the dire humanitarian situation.
In October, the U.N. Security Council approved the Multinational Security Support mission, nearly a year after Haiti requested the international community’s help. But the effort has been stalled by a legal challenge in Kenya, where the High Court in Nairobi ruled that the country’s offer to send 1,000 of its police officers to help Haiti’s beleaguered national police put down gangs is unconstitutional.
Kenyan President William Ruto has said his government is appealing the ruling. He also is working with Haitian officials to address the court’s concerns. Last week, some of those issues were addressed during a three-day meeting in Washington where officials from the U.S., Haiti and Kenya dealth with the parameters of the force and decided on its structure.
Jamaican Armed Forces
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“There’s nothing inherently wrong with Black people. There is something very, very wrong with the systems that we are forced to live under or within.” VOX: How weathering affects Black peoples’ health
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As many as 77 percent of women will have fibroids in their lifetimes, but we don’t know what causes them. This also means that we don’t know what’s behind fibroids’ racial disparities. Black women are more likely to experience symptoms because of their fibroids, and they are two to three times more likely to have them reoccur once they’re removed. We’re also more likely to be diagnosed at a younger age.
Doctors have theories about why that is. Some researchers think genetics are a factor; others think it could be chemicals we come in contact with. And some think it could be a phenomenon known as weathering.
Weathering is a term coined by researcher Arline Geronimus. It was not without controversy when it was first introduced, but more of the medical community points to it as a factor for a number of health disparities for Black Americans.
Dr. Uché Blackstock, the founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, explores this and other systemic failings of the health care system in her book Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine.
“Essentially, it’s this idea that dealing with the chronic stress of everyday racism causes a wear and tear on our bodies that prematurely ages us,” she says. “That actually makes us as Black folks susceptible to developing chronic diseases like heart disease, like autoimmune diseases, and also like fibroids.”
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